"THE DEAD HAND"

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 114, 17 May 1927, Page 15

"THE DEAD HAND"

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The recent declaration by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer—"l realise that taxation on the present level impedes the creation o£ new wealth." It reisembles a dead hand upon the nation's .industry" —gives to think, ( as our gallant French Alhes would say. > In Mb radical days the Right Hon. Winston Churchill would have known how to deal with such a situation. In those days he taught that there are. two ways of getting wealth—"production and plunder"; and he would at once have asked,"Why tax production; why throttle industry? Why not lift the dead hand of taxation off the nation's industry? If taxation must throttle something, why not, by taxing land values, let it throttle privilege and plunder?"

It is a somewhat curious fact that both 1 at Home and;here in New Zealand our. leading politicians, journals, and bankers never seem to realise that taxation, whether general or local, can be anything but a burden and, in a greater or less degree, a discouraging factor in industry. But, as a matter of fact, a land values into or tax is neither a burden nor a discouragement. Indeed, by cheapening land, the raw material of all industry, ft operates rather as a stimulus to production.—l am, et-3., . ■. % QUIDNUNC.